George McGovern Moves On

The most left wing major party nominee in US history is dead. I’ll have more to add about him. His landslide loss was the first Presidential election I paid any attention to at seven years old. I remember walking into the living room and my parents, with my aunt and uncle, sat glum – staring at the screen. I asked them what they were watching. My mother responded, “A monster movie.”

Odd thing was, a poll taken a couple of years later revealed that based upon reporting of how they had voted, it was split half and half. So many people didn’t want to admit to having voted for the other guy.

Meanwhile, I was ready to vote for McGovern in 1984, but he dropped out before the California primary.

He was indisputably a great man, even if he was the worst campaigner in Presidential race history. He would have lost anyway, but it should have been a little closer.

During my years in Congress and for the four decades since, I’ve been labeled a ‘bleeding-heart liberal.’ It was not meant as a compliment, but I gladly accept it. My heart does sometimes bleed for those who are hurting in my own country and abroad. A bleeding-heart liberal, by definition, is someone who shows enormous sympathy towards others, especially the least fortunate. Well, we ought to be stirred, even to tears, by society’s ills. And sympathy is the first step toward action. Empathy is born out of the old biblical injunction “Love the neighbor as thyself.”

13 comments

A loss for the United States, and for the world; this man reminded me, as a Canadian, of Jack Layton, except that Layton sadly never got within reach of the prime ministership like McGovern did with the presidency. My condolences to you and all other Americans.

I read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 in high school. An excellent book and good, though depressing, introduction to politics. It may seem out dated now, and I wonder how Thomson would write about super-pacs and how the cult of money essentially has taken over this country.

Here is an excerpt I found on-line:

“If the current polls are reliable… Nixon will be re-elected by a huge majority of Americans who feel he is not only more honest and more trustworthy than George McGovern, but also more likely to end the war in Vietnam. The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the Youth Vote. And that he might carry all fifty states… This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes… understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon. McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose… Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”

It should not be forgotten that McGovern devoted many years, after leaving the scene of electoral politics, to the problem of feeding the world. He wrote a book — ‘The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time,’ in which he calls genetically modified crops “an indispensable instrument in the fight against hunger.” Would that those who profess to be be “progressive” were as open-minded as the good senator from South Dakota!

Eric, his ability to campaign had nothing to do with the vote. He didn’t get the kind of media coverage he was entitled to get. They were all controlled even then, Half the democratic party, run by “Bosses” like Romney, were out to stop him even at the cost of helping the Republicans elect Nixon. Plus the American people voted their for war-mongering and corrupt ways and beliefs. They thought they were going to stop the progressives and win the war when they had already lost that war. They did stop the progressive movement though. The American people established before the world who and what they were as a people just like they did when they re-elected George Bush for a second term. That vote made this country legally liable; a price we’re all paying now. 1972 was a life-changing year for me too.

I voted for McGovern in 1972, but I certainly wasn’t surprised by the outcome of the election, nor did I ascribe it to the American people’s fondness for “war-mongering and corrupt ways and beliefs.” Parts of McGovern’s agenda went well beyond what one would find in Sweden or France. He proposed that the tax on inheritance or gifts above $500, 000 be …….. 100%. It’s astounding that he got the nomination — not that he lost in a landslide.

Didn’t he want to make all school lunches free across the country? I remember my conservative history teacher in high school saying that the proposal didn’t go over well with the public because it “reeked of socialism.”

As to his campaigning, probably touring the company with Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda wasn’t the best idea. I only know about it because it found its way into Holly Near’s song – a stanza about an old radical MCing a campaign event.

He introduced Tom Hayden
He welcomed George and Jane
Said he’d spoken out against the war
Over the radio back in 1954

That his advisors didn’t vent Eagleton and that he had no clue that his identification with the counter culture was going to hurt him with just about everyone else seems pretty amateur even for the times. But he was principled – probably the most honest major party candidate in history.

I just wish they held debates back then. I don’t think it would have altered the results much, but those debates would have been great for American political legacy. In policy discourse, McGovern was actually very sharp. No way would Nixon have agreed to debates after 1960 however.

At 15yrs old I plastered cars and buildings with flyers and bumperstickers for McGovern. I was too young to really know what was at stake. I was a teenager wanting to be older. I remember talking like I knew what was going on. Back then there really was a generational divide. I trusted no one over thirty. That I knew personally anyway.
Funny that no matter what happens, Pentagon Papers, Assassinations, Watergate…nothing ever changes. I thought things were changing with Carter, my only president; but then the fascists pushed back and we got Reagan.
Sucks.

I don’t know who remembers that McGovern first came to national attention when he was selected to represent Bobby Kennedy’s delegates at the 68 convention. Humphfrey had remained loyal to Johnson and refused to take an anti Nam war position which Bobby had come around to. In 68 I worked for Eugene McCarthy and we saw Bobby as a late stage opportunist and our favorite label for him was “a ruthless little prick”. Needless to say it never occurred to Kennedy’s people to support McCarthy who had some delegates of his own.

In 72 I worked for McGovern in a conservative congressional district. We all remember Watergate was the act of a devious paranoid but I can tell you that the anti McGovern dirty tricks went all the way to the local level. We had campaign materials disappear enroute to headquarters and vandalism to vehicles and property displaying McGovern signs. Given the results of the election it was massive overkill on Nixons behalf

McGovern was a man of honor and compassion and a philosophy ahead of his time.